streda 5. júna 2013

Borovička visiting Startup Weekend Tuzla

Borovička
is delighted to announce the first blog post in English in its history. What
else should it be on if not on one of our favorite topics, a startup event.
This time we’ve been enjoying the vibe at Startup Weekend Tuzla in Bosnia &Herzegovina. The organizing team showed great enthusiasm and skills. Although
it was just a first year Startup Weekend in the city, the event had a high
level of proficiency.

The area of
Electro-technical University was a good choice, as it is located in the closest
center of Tuzla town. The atmosphere was semiformal and relaxed. Maxo, the
facilitator and moderator of the venue, brought an international element to the
crowd. After the opening speech, the dinner and the first part of networking took
place and they were a nice prelude to the idea makers’ pitches as well as to
the team creation. All went pretty fast. As much as 21 business ideas emerged
on Friday. These were reduced by the audience to 9 best ideas that were to be
developed during the weekend.

The teams
started to work immediately. It was very interesting to observe the newly
formed teams. A group of geeks was running around the car park to catch some Wi-Fi.
A single-member team with external coworkers with pre-prepared idea to be
executed on the spot calling his friend’s marketing agency to do the market
research for him. Nice and different things happened there.

Saturday was,
as usually, full of frantic efforts of the teams working on their business
models and technical implementation. On Sunday, the teams worked especially on
the preparation of the final pitches. All this happened while receiving intense
mentoring from experienced professionals.

After
solving some technical issues with the presentations, the big evening finally
started. The two-and-a-half day work was presented by the following 8 teams:

- WeART is a regional, Balkan-oriented
website for connecting people from the several fine and performing arts fields.
Artists would share their works with the public as well as with their
colleagues. The authors got motivated from a successful US project and are
willing to adapt it to the local conditions. The presentation seemed a little
nervous, graphs had no values inserted. However, I believe the audience got
what they had to say.

- Clothes Checker is responding to the
trend of online shopping for clothes and outfit web-sharing which is getting
more and more common to the youngest generation. The team built a web that was
integrating contents, social media sharing, and offers from clothes
manufacturers. The presentation was clear and comprehensible. Even though
clothing is not my cup of tea, I hope to see them on-line soon. The team still
needs lots of mentoring to build a serious business model based on numbers.
Nevertheless, they might make it.

- The ‘Wish Save Buy’ app is designed
to help you save money for the staff you want to buy but do not have money for
yet. This is supposed to be a simple and straightforward website using a PayPal
API to achieve its goal. The team was built of respectable hard-skillers. I’m
happy that they managed to deliver a good pitch. These guys are promising!

- ‘Re-use plastic, be fantastic’ is
the tagline of Be Fantastic Bags, who sell a Bosnian grandma made unique, personalized
bags made from recycled plastic. The project obviously targets women,
especially the ecologically aware ones. Nice pitch.

- Laserify can help with crafting a
unique gift for a friend in case one does not know what to gift them for an
anniversary. It seems this trend of personalized objects in the region is
rising. Nice pitch with an embedded MVP presentation, a direct one. The efforts
of the team are focused on doing the whole process online and to provide a fast
delivery. They are aiming regional for now.

- Recognize Me is an on-line contest
portal for musicians, writers, and video makers in the Balkan region, designed
for both amateurs and professionals. It is designed to promote artists’ works
and, through the help of professional judges, to make the competition respectable
and to provide acknowledgement to the winners. For the time being, they plan to
get the money from the artists themselves. However, this might be a problem not
only in the Balkans, but in the Western Europe as well. Wish them luck with
creating a viable business model.

- Baby App Gugu-gaga is said to know
how to recognize the way your baby cries. What more, it will tell you what to
do about it. I would be interested in the success rate of their algorithm for
the baby cries. The authors claim there is some serious research behind this.
If it works, this can be extremely useful to the parents. The team aspires to
implement a generic learning algorithm, what seems to be a serious work. They
are planning to include feedback from the users. At the same time, they are not
planning to customize the algorithm for a respective baby. All in all, I liked
the pitch.

- MojCV.ba is a web for students to crate
their CVs with the use of expert advice and guidelines. We can say they aspire
to build a localized LinkedIn service. I would be interested in the numbers on
how would this business model based on freemium, ads, and paid campaigns survive
on the local market.

Winners
announced in the Startup Weekend categories aaaare as follows:

- The
Best startup – Baby app Gugu-gaga

- The
Best execution – Laserify

- The
Best pitch – Be Fantastic Bags

- The
Best Social Responsible – mojcv.ba

In a
nutshell, SW Tuzla was a great experience for the attendees, organizers,
mentors, and for us as well. We enjoyed a friendly atmosphere thanks to the
organizers. I believe we all learned a lot from each other and I am looking
forward to our further cooperation. These Bosnian people are really great guys J Once you forget the prejudices have
in your mind concerning the Balkans, and Bosnia & Herzegovina especially,
you find a nation of fantastic people with a great future in front of them.